Todd Fiddler and his big shot are back in the WHL Western Conference.
The 20-year-old Fiddler, who scored 42 goals last season for the Spokane Chiefs, was traded to the Prince George Cougars earlier this week from the Moose Jaw Warriors for a conditional fifth-round pick in the 2015 WHL bantam draft.
"When I got the news I was pretty excited, I sat home for a week when it didn't work out [in Moose Jaw] and I'm happy to be back in a dressing room -- it's a positive group of guys and it seems like they can make things happen," said Fiddler,
"I had a good season last year and haven't really been doing much this year but I feel like this is going to be a good place for me. I'm playing with [Troy] Bourke and [Alex] Forsberg right now and hopefully this weekend we'll find some chemistry there."
Fiddler expects to get plenty of ice time when the Cougars take on Kelowna Friday night in Kelowna and in Saturday's game in Vancouver. The five-foot-11, 210-pound left winger had two goals and eight assists in 14 games for the Warriors this season. The Cougars haven't had a 40-goal scorer since Brett Connolly scored 46 in 2010-11.
"It's exciting, and hopefully we can get him back to that part of his game here," said Cougars general manager Dallas Thompson. "Obviously, things didn't happen like that in Moose Jaw but we have a guy who scored 42 last year and we're looking to give him an opportunity to do it again.If you look at our power play [last in the WHL with a 12.4 per cent success rate], to get a guy who's a shooter and can score can only kickstart that, and that's what we're looking for from him right now."
Fiddler was traded to Spokane 35 games into the 2011-12 season and emerged as the Chiefs' top goalscorer last year, finishing with 77 points in 70 games. In his 228-game WHL career he's totalled 79 goals, 153 points and 87 penalty minutes, as well as six goals and 14 points in 26 playoff games.
Fiddler is a member of the Waterhen Lake First Nation near Meadow Lake, Sask., where he played his minor hockey. Growing up in northwestern Saskatchewan, he regularly attended Prince Albert Raiders games and his favourite players were Joe Sakic and Jordin Tootoo.
The Cougars are Fiddler's fifth WHL team in five years. He was a third-round selection of the Medicine Hat Tigers in the 2008 draft and played one game for the Tigers as a 15-year-old, then moved on the following season to the Prince Albert Raiders, collecting 23 goals and 38 points in 2010-11 as a rookie. He spent the next half-season in Prince Albert before his trade to Spokane.
The Warriors announced last week that Fiddler was no longer in their plans.
"When we made the deal for him in the off-season we had expectations in terms of Todd coming in and playing the way he needed to play and hopefully producing offensively," Warriors general manager Alan Millar told the Moose Jaw Times-Herald. "That didn't happen, and for whatever reason it didn't work and it wasn't a fit for our hockey club. We needed to move on."
Fiddler gives the Cats a full complement of 20-year-olds, joining defenceman Peter Kosterman and winger Klarc Wilson.
Earlier this week the Cougars shipped the WHL rights to 19-year-old forward Peter Quenneville to the Brandon Wheat Kings for a third-round bantam pick in 2015. Quenneville, a seventh-round Columbus Blue Jackets pick in 2013, picked up four assists in five games playing on the top scoring line for the NCAA Division 1 Quinnipiac University Bobcats
Thompson said the Cougars will continue their search for an older defenceman leading up to the Jan. 10 roster deadline. The Cats' blueline brigade now includes Kosterman, five 18-year-olds, two 17-year-olds, and one 16-year-old.
